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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23581978">legend of the leaf</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetsamurai/pseuds/streetsamurai'>streetsamurai</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Bijuu as Lovecraftian Eldritch beings, Depression, Gen, Hatake Kakashi Needs a Hug, Hatake Kakashi-centric, Missing-Nin Hatake Kakashi, Past Character Death, Worldbuilding, except they're a little more down-to-earth, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:21:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,574</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23581978</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetsamurai/pseuds/streetsamurai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Kakashi goes back in time. Things don’t work out too well when he tries to fix everything solo.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hatake Kakashi &amp; Hatake Sakumo, Hatake Kakashi &amp; Namikaze Minato &amp; Nohara Rin &amp; Uchiha Obito, Hatake Kakashi &amp; Uzumaki Kushina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>92</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>469</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. a dream in which he never died</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kakashi is six years old. He's hip-tall, lighter than a feather, and more scared than he’s felt in forever.</p><p>He pinches himself when the chakra trick doesn’t work, and then the shaky gasps get the better of him. That’s when the ghost looks up.</p><p>A five minute blackout later and Kakashi’s back on his feet, hugging his father’s shoulders, his small form shivering.</p><p>It doesn’t make sense that he’s here, and for the longest time, he doubts this is real—until Sakumo plants a kiss on top of his head.</p><p>“I, I—“</p><p>Kakashi is a mess. He thinks Sakumo’s crying, too.</p><p>He takes his stupid little mask off, wipes at his face with the long sleeves of his shirt. Looks up to see and steps back—more of that confusion—because his father looks is so <em>real</em>.</p><p>Dad stares at him, and there’s fear in his eyes, too.</p><p>“Kashi—“</p><p>“I’m okay, I’m okay, I just, I just—“ Kakashi rumbles, tries to think of <em>something</em>, anything, “—I just, I woke up and—“</p><p>“Did you sleep after your practice?” Sakumo asks, and it’s such an off question.Sleeping after practice? What practice—</p><p>Well, Kakashi goes for it. “No, I, yes? I’m sorry.” Sleeping after practice. Sleeping. “I just, had this nightmare and I—“</p><p>“It’s okay. I’m sorry.” Sakumo hugs him again, and it’s such a reluctant gesture, Kakashi wants to punch himself. He hugs back with all his strength, which is much less than what he’s used to.</p><p>When they break apart, Sakumo stays on his knees in front of him. Kakashi can’t hold his gaze for long, but Sakumo beats him to it.</p><p>He looks away, stares at something behind Kakashi.</p><p>Kakashi whips his head back, but there isn’t much there. Just the empty hallway of the Hatake Compound, the shut door and a beat-up bag with stuff from it scattered on the floor. It takes a second, but Kakashi remembers it to be the bag he used to have years ago—or, well, now.</p><p>Sakumo won’t look him in the eye, but that’s great for now, because Kakashi definitely can’t, either. He looks around a little more, but grips dad’s shirt’s sleeve—just to keep him close while Kakashi finds his ground.</p><p>This is his childhood home, alright.</p><p>All done in wood, dimly lit like it always had been during his last months here.</p><p>“Had a bad dream,” Kakashi says to no one, looking at a small spider on the wall.</p><p>For a moment, he expects Sakumo to ask. What was the dream about? And for the following moment it seems like Sakumo might, or at least wants to, but instead just looks at Kakashi with—that reluctance again.</p><p>Sakumo’s suicide was a weight on Kakashi's shoulders still. Even after Pain and his death experience, meeting Sakumo at the campfire, the pain didn’t go.</p><p>“I’m so sorry,” he says. Feels like a child. Sounds like a child. This sorry is the only thing he can say at the moment. He’s sorry—</p><p>“What for?” Sakumo asks. His voice is heavy with strain.</p><p>For everything. Kakashi is sorry for everything, and today’s the first time in over two decades when that being sorry matters. When his pain can mean, can <em>change</em> something. “Please don’t leave me.”</p><p>He cries into Sakumo’s shoulder. Kakashi’s a selfish, selfish man, but maybe him being selfish might actually change things—which is what Naruto hoped for.</p><p>Naruto, sending him back in time with the last bits of his chakra left.</p><p>Kakashi can’t believe it worked.</p><p>He’s either dead, <em>or it worked</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>im back with my bad writing and ideas far over my head! please let me know what you think!<br/>also expect sporadic updates as i'm constantly editing what i've already written and can't post too much until the draft's completely finished<br/>thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. back into the hole where i was born (step off the train all alone at dawn)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>half the notes for this fic is just oasis lyrics i swear</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kakashi’s morning starts with a nightmare.</p><p>It’s a vision of Sasuke, holding up the Susanoo under Kaguya’s attack. Keeping Kakashi safe, giving Naruto time to send him back.</p><p>Sakura is healing them all. With her hair an ashy pink, she’s a shadow of herself. Skin taught over her bones, paper-like, pale and dry. Ready to break.</p><p>She’s been giving her all.</p><p>They all have. Under the boys’ techniques Kakashi couldn’t see how much the battle’s drained them. Sakura, though, she doesn’t have the veil of the stuttering bijuu chakra or Susanoo’s glow to hide how bad she is.</p><p>“Naruto, you have to send her too—“</p><p>“Just you. I can barely… just you.”</p><p>“You can’t send me,” Kakashi pleads. Sakura can’t die here. “I won’t—“</p><p>“Don't you—“</p><p>“I can’t do it!”</p><p>“Like hell you can’t,” Sakura growls at him. There’s a stern, determined look in her eyes. “You have to.”</p><p>“It can be you. You’ll do better—“</p><p>“I can’t send her far enough.”</p><p>Those are Naruto's final words. Then the violet Susanoo breaks apart as Kakashi is yanked back through a void.</p><p> </p><p>He wakes with a gasp, starved for air just like after that jump. His futon and the thin blanked are soaked through with sweat.</p><p>Takes too long to get his breathing under control again. Still, Kakashi’s too exhausted to be hard on himself. He takes his time, and once his heartbeat is back to normal, gets up on his feet and dresses.</p><p>He can hear the dishes clanking from his room. That worry set aside, Kakashi can try to come back to himself some more.</p><p>Last thing he did yesterday before sleep was record the date. His memory of these times is fuzzy at best. He repressed most of his childhood, probably.</p><p>Yet, Kakashi has a good recollection of later events—not exactly a reliable timeline, but for now, he should be good. If he gets his shit together, he can manage this.</p><p>Exiting his room and seeing his father again proves the wrong thing: he doesn’t have his shit together.</p><p>Kakashi’s knees buckle right under him. Sakumo doesn’t catch him in time and slides up to him on the polished floor in an attempted jump to do so. Like yesterday, he’s on his knees again in front of Kakashi.</p><p>“I’m taking you to the hospital.”</p><p>Kakashi wants to push Sakumo’s hands away—he’ll get up on his own this time, thanks—but his limbs are all leaden-heavy. He just shakes his head, saying a weak, childish, “No.”</p><p>Would be nice to have his adult voice back.</p><p>“I sound like a child.”</p><p>Sakumo pinches the bridge of his nose. “You are a ch… Look, I, I’m worried, right? Let’s get you to the hospital. Forgive the old man.”</p><p>Kakashi wants to <em>protest—old man. </em>What is that supposed to mean? His father’s in his late twenties, just like him. “No,” he replies and after gaining a little bit more voice back, “It’s just been… too much.”</p><p>Naruto’s dead and Sakura’s dead and Sasuke’s dead, but his father is right here, and Kakashi can’t.</p><p>He won’t cry again. Or, he won’t cry again right now, he’s keeping the crying for later.</p><p>It's just that he can’t get up. “Just give me a moment,” he nods, as reassuring as he can, and can’t help the happy fluttering in his chest when Sakumo nods back.</p><p>“I, uh… I made us breakfast.”</p><p>Right. Because Sakumo hadn’t touched the kitchen back then, not with Kakashi able to prep all his meals on his own.</p><p>Kakashi nods again.</p><p>He can feel the tingling that starts in his curled feet. Not wanting to escalate his limbs falling ever more asleep on him, Kakashi attempts to get up again. He finds his footing, and if the wall is what's helping him keep the balance, it’s not his personal worst.Sakumo scoots away.</p><p>They have the fish he's cooked. This isn't exactly a breakfast, if the sun outside is to go by. That’s just fine with Kakashi, though.</p><p>“I missed practice?” he suggests, breaking the chopsticks.</p><p>That reluctance is back on his father’s face again.</p><p>“It’s okay.” Dad hadn’t been keeping up with Kakashi’s schedule. If this is a lie, it's not a big one. “Can afford a day off, anyway.”</p><p>A slightly less tighter gripping of the chopsticks is Sakumo’s sign of relief.</p><p>“Wanna come to my practice tomorrow?”</p><p>Kakashi feels so lost and awkward he can’t eat. He lets the question out without thinking. But now that he actually has time to process the words, yes—it makes perfect sense. He isn't about to leave Sakumo alone. Not until he’s sure his dad is okay on his own. And if that’s never, so be it. What would be the point of this second chance otherwise? </p><p>“Maybe,” is Sakumo's reply.</p><p>Well, then maybe Kakashi won't miss practice tomorrow.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Normally, a full day is enough for a shinobi to prepare for anything. Today should be a simple day; meet your team, have some light exercise, make sure your dad’s with you.</p><p>He had a full day of dealing with the fact that he’s about to meet his three dead teammates, after all.</p><p>Still, Kakashi’s holding his father’s hand like it’s his first day at the Academy. When his sensei’s bright yellow hair appears in the distance it takes all his willpower not to turn right around on his heels.</p><p>Didn’t take that long to get used to his eyesight being back to perfect. Kakashi never thought the difference was this stark until yesterday. He’s lost the sharpness of his eyes in his adult years. Might have been the head injuries, or the back injuries, or the strain. Maybe the fact that Kakashi hasn’t had two seeing eyes for the longest time—after all, his Sharingan was losing vision, and it’s only that Kakashi had his own eye that he could aim.</p><p>Now, in the bright morning sun, the world has too much value in its shapes, and everything has a light halo to it.</p><p>Maybe that’s the reason his teammates look so unreal.</p><p>Minato-sensei and Rin are both eyeing his father, carefully polite expressions on their faces. Obito just stands there, his hand frozen in his hair mid-scratch.</p><p>“Everything okay?” he asks at the same time as Minao goes, “It’s good to see you, Sakumo-san.”</p><p>Kakashi trusts Minato with his father, even if his sensei is unbeknown of that. He squeezes Sakumo’s palm a bit before letting go and running towards Rin and Obito.</p><p>“Bet you to the Gravity Tree!” he yells, running past. Obito yelps and follows suit.</p><p>Kakashi’s time travel must have exhausted his younger body, and Obito is too focused on beating him to notice anyone else. Rin’s the first to touch the Gravity Tree. She does a little bounce and stands back with a wide smile, Obito’s blabbering behind Kakashi, and Kakashi’s too taken with the way sunlight falls through Rin’s brown hair, warming her light skin, making the markings on her cheeks shine.</p><p>Kakashi could never recall the tree’s name until now; Obito'd called it that after learning basic chakra control here.</p><p>This training ground had been destroyed after the Kyuubi attack, the tree gone with it.</p><p>Seeing what he sees now, remembering what he just remembered, Kakashi can’t help but think he’s in a dream. Could be the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Maybe a lesser genjutsu. Maybe Kakashi's passed out in the field, just a few drops of chakra keeping him from death.</p><p>He pinches himself again, and when that doesn’t work, tries the chakra trick.</p><p>He’s still here.</p><p>“You okay, Bakashi? Something odd with you today.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> Young Obito is not the one to read the room, but even he notices the attention drawn to Kakashi's father. </span></p><p>Kakashi can sense both Minato and Sakumo, so he doesn’t turn to watch them. Doesn’t say anything, too, not until Rin speaks up.</p><p>“I’m glad your dad is here,” she says. “He looks better.”</p><p>How can he look better with just a night’s sleep?</p><p>The bite’s just at the tip of Kakashi’s tongue. He clenches his teeth, works his jaw. The words, the very existence of them, is so unexpected and uncalled for—he does the chakra trick again. Someone must be controlling him, or controlling the dream.</p><p>The chakra trick doesn’t work.</p><p>He’s still here.</p><p>Later that day, he doesn’t move fast enough to avoid hitting Minato.</p><p>His mind is blank; he’s so much weaker than he’s used to, but stronger than he should be.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>A week into his young body, and Kakashi is in agony.</p><p>Obito is a damn child. Childish and boyish and brash and annoying. Kakashi’s split between wanting to shake some sense into Zetsu’s future puppet or making sure that nothing, ever, comes close to hurting that innocent interior of the kid.</p><p>Kakashi can’t practice with someone other that his sensei, afraid of hurting Rin or Obito in this clumsy body.</p><p>His balance is way off. Of course, that’s a rather quick fix—less than a week turns out to be enough time for Kakashi to get usedto being light like a bird. He’s short, too, and combined with his eyesight turning back to its past glory (Kakashi never realized how much difference there was in his twenties, when the ache of the Sharingan took away from the fact that his own eye was losing sight), a little bit of practice is well enough to turn him into what the others start calling <em>Yellow Flash’s Little Lighting</em>.</p><p>Personally, Kakashi never heard that name, but it makes sense people who see him train start calling him <em>something </em>other than the White Fang's son. Based on the pure, white-hot awe Obito was in, the first time he got to actually witness Kakashi in action against their sensei. He wants to fight Kakashi desperately after that, which is something Kakashi wishes he could indulge in just as desperately—but still, even after getting used to the smaller body, he doesn't trust himself not to accidentally hurt Rin or Obito.</p><p>The euphoria of coming back is short-lived.</p><p>It’s five years until the Kannabi Bridge. No matter how good he can keep up with Minato-sensei, Kakashi’s still dreadfully unprepared for—any real fight, honestly, let alone something of Akatsuki level. His body’s stamina and the development of the chakra pathways makes sure that most techniques he could use later in life are downright dangerous to him and unstable enough to endanger his teammates along with that.</p><p>His only hope is whatever situation he finds his team in, Kakashi can charge with Chidori once to solve the problem. If not… Well, nothing in this world indicates that Minato isn’t going to give his students the special kunai, once Konoha grows desperate enough to throw them onto the frontlines.</p><p>Until then, Kakashi’s still just a genin, and the only power he holds is overseeing his father’s mental state.</p><p>This situation he found himself in, though. It’s too much—too big for him alone to grasp, and the realization of that has Kakashi restless and anxious out of his mind.</p><p>He can’t sleep. Whenever he closes his eyes, it’s like the Sharingan is back, passed through the land of the dead and time by Obito’s Mangekyo. Obito, who doesn’t know in death that his friends have lost.</p><p>Kakashi sees the war. Blood, which he’s used to; <em>himself</em>, looking through the piles with Obito’s Sharingan, searching for Sakura because he knows she’s dead. Once Naruto sent Kakashi back, they were all dead, he can—can feel that, somehow, see that through Obito’s eyes, or the memory of them, that return every time he goes to sleep.</p><p>His solution is to refuse that. He just—doesn’t sleep. Most energy pills and drinks make him nauseous and shaky, but they keep him awake alright, so that’s what Kakashi resorts to.</p><p>During the nights of forced wakefulness, Kakashi maps out a reference for himself. Everything he can remember, crisscrossing lines connecting dots and points, blank spaces in circles to show what he doesn’t know.</p><p>To his horror, about half the paper is the empty circles. </p><p>Not all of them are connected to Zetsu.</p><p>Dates of other jinchuuriki being captured, Itachi’s sickness, Yahiko’s death—the things he doesn’t know are so many, it renders the paper completely useless.</p><p>In fear of someone finding it and not confident he can properly seal it, Kakashi burns the sheet.</p><p>He redraws the maps of events, and they come out different each time.</p><p>At the same time, he stands strong by not letting Sakumo be alone. They spend most of their days together, save for when Sakumo is off to a rare solo mission. The fear of leaving him on his own is too great, which leaves the maps to nighttime.</p><p>And that leaves Kakashi losing days of sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. sunshine, followed by thunder</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Calm days like today are his favorite, now. Minato's left for an unlisted S-Rank Kakashi can't recall, but his worry's quickly subdued by the company of others. With no training and missions, Kakashi is left to his own devices—but not without dragging his father with him, of course.</p><p>Usually he would start things lazy. Light training before dad is up. Making breakfast. Busying himself with chores. The life of a seven year old shinobi.</p><p>Letting his feet touch the cool wooden floor, Kakashi takes his time to wake up. It’s not easy. The insides of his head are pulsing with a promise of a headache. The bed’s pulling him back with all its nocturnal strength. Kakashi bites his lips in thought. Maybe, maybe today he can skip all that. No team practice, no training, no—mapping.</p><p>Just rest.</p><p>His eyes find the small calendar standing on his desk.</p><p>Yeah, so this is what the feeling is.</p><p>He recalls now, twenty years ago. Waking up—Minato had been off to a mission, must had been the same one. Kakashi'd left for practice. Obito had a bad landing in the mud, stirred up and slippery after the night’s storm. The heavy rain had continued well into the afternoon, and by the time Rin and him had hauled Obito’s ass to the hospital and Kakashi got home, Sakumo had gone cold in the pool of his blood.</p><p>Kakashi’s breath catches at the memory. He shoots to his feet and out of his own room. Ignoring the dark spots in his vision, he runs through the house to find Sakumo in the living room, reading a book.</p><p>Sakumo’s face lights up when he sees him, eye crinkles showing from the smile, “Aren’t you a bit too young for a reading like this, Kakashi?” He shakes the book he’s holding.</p><p>The thing's bright orange.</p><p>Adrenaline spike ends with a blush of embarrassment. Kakashi drops to the chair opposite of his father, playing a lazy impression of a flustered child.</p><p>They both know it doesn’t work. At least the blush on his face is real, and the thought of his father thinking that he, Kakashi, Sakumo’s seven year old son, is reading that stuff, makes him yearn for the ground to finally swallow him right up.</p><p>“Where did you even get this?”</p><p>“I am a ninja,” Kakashi deadpans, pinching and stretching his mask. He’s too used to it now, but back then—boy, back then it was an exercise in will to keep the thing on. Such a bratty thing to do, wearing it all the time despite all that discomfort.</p><p>“So you stole it, then.” His dad’s voice is curious, and Kakashi knows better than to expect accusations.</p><p>He can’t help what leaves his mouth in his defence, though.</p><p>“I left the money in the register,” he says, making his best impression of a grade-A student. “Was my pocket money, too.” An untouched for months stash he had.</p><p>Kami, he misses having proper money.</p><p>“So you spent your pocket money…”</p><p>On porn. Yeah, on porn. Sakumo can say that.</p><p>Kakashi’s infinitely happy he doesn’t. The word’s in the air, but not giving it voice leaves some space for convenient misunderstandings.</p><p>Sakumo sighs, shutting the book. He rubs his eyes—and, oh, he looks so tired, too tired for the progress Kakashi thinks they’ve made.</p><p>He wouldn’t dare believe that simply him, staying by his father’s side, can turn the situation around. And all the things he can possibly do to improve this, he does—</p><p>He even let Minato know of his concerns.</p><p>Was an awkward conversation, that one. Awkward, because Minato had to tiptoe around the subject of how few people would want to help. Most of the medical personnel being shinobi, Kakashi couldn’t disagree that they're in a tough situation.</p><p>But it was an effort, sort of a safeguard, to let Minato know—and maybe let some of <em>his </em>trusted people know, too, so they can keep an eye out.</p><p>“Tousan... Are you okay?” he asks shyly. His insides are ice cold.</p><p>“With you choice of reading material?”</p><p>Kakashi shakes his head. “Don’t. Don’t be like… this isn’t what I’m talking about. You know that, right?”</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Kakashi takes a lunchbox with him to practice. This particular lunch is special, because his father made it. Not a common occurrence. Not at all.</p><p>Walking towards the training fields is something of a nerve wrecking ordeal. For one, Kakashi hasn’t yet gotten used to his friends being alive.</p><p>And two, it’s been over a week since the past-Sakumo had killed himself. The new timeline creates too many variables. The sole reason Kakashi agreed to leave the house and go to practice is because Sakumo was very, very insistent. He put the lunchbox in Kakashi’s hands and shoved him right through the door.</p><p>The smile on his face was happy and genuine enough—no doubt caused by the dummy-son’s antics—and so Kakashi decided it was safe to leave. </p><p>The village doesn’t like him much this time around, either. When he was a kid, it seemed like the whole world was this black, hateful mass, and only Team Minato was the reprieve.</p><p>Now, with almost thirty years of bullshit behind his back, Kakashi’s just pissed at the people for daring to look at the seven year old child—his past self or not—like they’re the pinnacle of evil driving the village apart.</p><p>“Ridiculous,” he puffs, making his way past the market. His body makes him look like a starved orphan, which isn't too far from what he was like, last time—courtesy of the stamina training he’s onto these past few months. What kind of person looks at the sight of him dragging his bag towards the shinobi-zone; no-go and gets genuinely pissed off?</p><p>Alas, his team greets him at the training grounds. One Rin, busy with her journal up until the moment she sees him, one disheveled Obito, late as usual, but not later than Obito-inspired Kakashi, and one Minato-sensei, the buffoon of a master assassin hanging off the thickest branch in the nearby bushes.</p><p>Kakashi’s chakra control and thus space-sweeping isn’t as good as it used to be—which isn’t to tell it was ever really well—but he hopes with the entirety of his small, reluctant heart, that Minato is indeed hanging off a branch for dear life, opossum or spider-style, and not just creeping at them like a weirdo in a crouch.</p><p>“Hi all,” he calls and squints in Minato’s general direction. The man doesn’t emerge. “Sorry I’m a bit late.”</p><p>Obito’s face impersonates that of a surprised blowfish.</p><p>Kakashi wonders why that is.</p><p>“It’s, it’s over an hour that the practice should’ve started!”</p><p>“—All Obito’s trying to say—”</p><p>Yeah, definitely a bunch of kids, but god does Kakashi miss them.</p><p>The worst part here is that Kakashi remembers growing up with them, being infuriated and then learning to cherish those moments once it was too late. Now he can cherish this present time all he wants. And instead, he doesn't feel much of anything.</p><p>“Glad you’re here, ‘Kashi-kun.” Minato appears with a face not red enough to show if he’s been hanging upside down. “Is everything okay?” <em>At home, </em>he doesn't say. </p><p>Kakashi thinks back there—back to his father. He nods.</p><p>“Let’s begin, then.”</p><p>And begin they do. Starting with a Minato-level easy warmup, which leaves everyone, including Minato-sensei himself, panting, and finishing with Kakashi blowing a tree to shreds and his skin to bloody chunks with an attempt at Chidori.</p><p>Looks like the memories don’t up-level chakra pathways, after all. This delayed realization is what follows Kakashi into the hospital.</p><p> </p><p>He charges the technique. That’s where it all goes awry. The power goes up and down his arm, then a wave of cold, and a shock follow from his shoulder down to the fingertips.</p><p>Kakashi goes flying sideways, not able to tell his surroundings at such speed without the Sharingan.</p><p>The shockwave doesn’t stop. The chakra keeps draining. Within just a few seconds Kakashi goes from lightheadedness to the euphoria of chakra depletion. He aims his strike at an old tree—anything in the hopes that the phantom memory of landing the hit will stop the technique.</p><p>“Oh, Kakashi,” is the first thing that registers after he opens his eyes to the blinding daylight. </p><p>His right hand burns and throbs in pain, and looking down at it, he sees a mess of blood seeping from the tears in his skin. In one spot, a mass of fat and muscle underneath it show—</p><p>He looks away, carefully raising the hurt hand to his chest. There are hands helping him sit up, someone cradles him by hugging the not so damaged shoulder.</p><p>“Oi, Bakashi, this looks—this looks really bad—”</p><p>“Rin, please take Obito away,” Minato’s calm voice rings just above him.</p><p>He sounds more worried than he should be. After all, Kakashi’s done this technique a hundred times. Never blew himself up before, but—that should have always been the expected outcome. </p><p>“Kakashi, can you hear me?” he asks</p><p>Kakashi’s not up to it. He doesn’t… feel like answering. Bothering to use his voice.</p><p>That’s too—difficult.</p><p>He can’t imagine opening his mouth and forming words.</p><p>The bark of the tree he aimed for now lies across the clearing, chips scattered all over.</p><p>
  <em>That’s, huh. That’s a lot of power, though.</em>
</p><p>Reminds him of that time Sakura blew a boulder to pieces, shortly after Naruto returned home from his training.</p><p>Then Minato’s picking him up, and with that, more vertigo follows as they jump through space with Hiraishin.</p><p>It’s dark outside when Kakashi finally snaps out of it. And by snapping, he jumps up, falls off the hospital cot, feet tangled in a thin bleached sheet, and lands on his ass on the cold tiles.</p><p>Wood screeches across the floor as his father flies to his feet.</p><p>“Kakashi!”</p><p><em>Kami</em>, he’s quite tired of being one.</p><p>“Are you alright? Here,” Sakumo picks him up. Kakashi does his best to assist.</p><p>They’re in a dimly-lit room—no lights are on but a fluttering bedside lamp, though Sakumo quickly remedies that.</p><p>Kakashi’s arm is all bandaged up. The gauze is clean and smells of a cooling mint ointment. He can’t feel much under it.</p><p>“Is it bad?” he asks. His sounds hoarse, like from a bout of being silent. Or screaming. He doesn’t think he slept—more likely, was passed out from exhaustion.</p><p>There’re worry marks all over Sakumo’s face. He shakes his head, “It was, but they fixed it quick. Shouldn’t even scar.”</p><p>As if scarring is what shinobi worry about.</p><p>Picking up on that thought, Sakumo continues, “The… the chakra pathways are intact. It’s mostly… the rest of the arm that’s injured. Good thing Minato brought you in so quick,” a small shiver runs through his body, “You could’ve—”</p><p>“I would’ve bled to death,” Kakashi finishes. Makes sense. His body is small, and it would take a lesser technique to kill him. “Was idiotic of me, I guess.”</p><p>“What was?” Sakumo asks, brows narrowing.</p><p><em>What happened</em> must be the theme of the century.</p><p>“I, I tried a new technique. I’ve mapped it all out on paper, but—” he stammers, “—but I guess I should’ve started smaller in field.”</p><p>“So that’s what’s been keeping you up all these nights.”</p><p>Ah, of course Sakumo’s noticed.</p><p>Coming up with a new flashy technique is the explanation Kakashi hasn’t thought of before. Might even not land him in trouble, that one.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Land him in trouble his nightly shenanigans do.</p><p>Kakashi gets a curfew: no more staying up all night.</p><p>Small Pakkun is the one overseeing the rule. Sakumo did good choosing the pup. Pakkun is young, freshly out of his dog-teenage years. He isn’t the second in command, or in command at all yet. The lack of experience makes him desperate for proving himself to others, which makes for one strict summon.</p><p>Pakkun is more than willing to bark Kakashi up into the bed if he has to. It’s not like Kakashi can risk Pakkun seeing his time-maps, so he abides.</p><p>If his stamina training progresses better once he starts getting enough sleep, no one knows enough to make him admit that.</p><p>“This is for you to feel better!” Rin says the next time they work together. It’s a C-rank mission; chase and catch a bunch of pet lizards that escaped their terrariums.</p><p>Inside Rin’s package is a bento with a miso-mushroom omelet and steamed fish. Both Obito and Minato get their share Rin lovingly cooked for them, and Kakashi delights himself on watching Minato try and shove up his mouth two meals at once.</p><p>Hasn’t occurred to him until now that Minato and Kushina are together.</p><p>Minato’s team hasn’t been a team for too long. He hasn’t introduced them yet.</p><p>One of the lizards is dining with them. It’s a bronze brown pet salamander Kakashi watched try and fail to eat a fat, slow slug before he took pity and scooped him up. He gives him a small chunk of fish, too—that has to be better than a slug—while the rest of the unfortunate bunch of lizards watches from their respective containers, stacked on top of each other to create a small lizard pyramid.</p><p>“Souta-san said what, eleven lizards? How do you lose eleven lizards?!” Obito voices in between stuffing himself with a double portion as well—his grandmother never let him go hungry. “And we have ourselves exactly ten lizards, plus the one Bakashi’s budding up with," he turns towards Kakashi's lizard friend. "Say, salamander-chan, Rin’s steamed fish any good?”</p><p>The salamander blinks at Kakashi blankly, truly a world of thought behind its beady eyes.</p><p>Mostly through context clues than thanks to any memories, Kakashi builds up the present time around him.</p><p>For example, the rivalry between Obito and him hasn’t properly manifested yet. It would've taken years of Kakashi’s knuckleheadedness to properly piss Obito off, and evidently the few years they shared at the Academy wasn’t enough.</p><p>Which means, Kakashi doesn’t really have to fight with Obito to make them friends or anything. He can sort of… just go along. Going along is quite fun, too. Almost like going along with his own team’s antics, except this time around he doesn’t have to pretend to be uninterested.</p><p>With that, Kakashi nods at salamander-chan, offering him another bit of fish with his chopsticks. Takes way too long for the salamander to register the offering. When he does, he misses the target.</p><p>“This, right here, is Uchiha Obito the Second,” Kakashi says in his most proclaiming voice, gesturing at the lizard.</p><p>For that, Obito the First dunks him into the nearby creek, which Kakashi minds only slightly. Rin changes the gauze around the injured arm for him.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>The Kannabi Bridge mission goes smooth.</p><p>Kakashi can barely keep up from exhaustion. The world swims and tilts to the sides in his eyes by the time they’re back in Konoha.</p><p>He’s been looking for a sign of Zetsu or Madara or <em>anyone</em> who could be their grey cardinal, which turned out to be a fruitless task. He doesn’t let Rin be abducted, keeps his eye and, in an attempt to try and control the things that must go wrong, lets Obito fare on his own while he’s making sure Rin is alright.</p><p>Obito returns home with his Sharingan awakened.</p><p>Kakashi keeps both his eyes.</p><p>Sakumo doesn’t return from his solo mission for another month. It takes Obito’s Obaasan exactly twenty four hours to snatch Kakashi from the empty Hatake compound and make a second bed for him in Obito’s room.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Sometimes, Kakashi can’t tell Rin from Sakura. He’d see the ghosts, and at the edge of his vision, Sakura’s form and her pastel pink hair. He'd choke on air with his heart hammering in his chest only to see his pretty, shy Rin when looking closer. She’s confused, every damn time like it’s the first time that happens.</p><p>Kakashi sees a little bit <em>too much</em> of Naruto in both his sensei and Obito, and Sasuke—</p><p>He sees a bit of Sasuke in everyone, feels like.</p><p>The world around doesn’t seem real at all.</p><p>Just before falling in the enemy’s hands, he pushes Rin away and throws Minato’s kunai at her feet.</p><p>It’s his last ditched attempt to keep her safe. The last thing he sees is the tears streaking down her face, making her markings even more stark. She doesn’t dare leave injured Obito’s side.</p><p>If Kakashi’s plan works, Minato-sensei is going to find them. By that time, Kakashi should have a bijuu sealed within.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. great deep sea</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i'm editing this while seriously wanting to sleep bc i CAN'T normally sleep after i post a chapter lol<br/>also i have two weeks until the semester's officially done, but guess what, i'm done before that! gonna have to fix all the missed exams in autumn, but guess what, it's not autumn! happy july everyone</p><p>give kushina&amp;kakashi some love, please</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s cold.</p><p> </p><p>So cold.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>This place…</p><p> </p><p>He isn’t sure what it is.</p><p>He knows <em>some things</em>. Just at the edge of his peripherals.</p><p>He’s got a name.</p><p>He’s alive.</p><p>The void around him is starkly black, not a sound but his own steps as he stands up.</p><p>He feels eyes on him, watching, and so much <em>hatred</em> it makes him shudder. For the life of him, he can’t think of a reason someone can hate this much.</p><p>Wanting to ask, he walks in a circle, looking into the void to see the source of hatred. The blackness starts pushing, suffocating—</p><p>Kakashi comes to his senses with a cry. He’s lying on his back on a cold slab of steel. The sounds of a fight rage outside. Someone, and by that someone he means Obito, who's properly pissed off.</p><p>When Kakashi sees him, Obito’s with Rin. She’s bandaged up the right side of his face. The blood’s seeping through a cut on his forehead, and the red on the gauze matches his Sharingan.</p><p>It’s the three of them in enemy territory with no backup. Rin’s the one helping Kakashi to his feet, as he can barely stand on his own.</p><p>“I see you didn’t wait for Minato-sensei,” he says, noting just how weak his voice is.</p><p>“We went after you the moment Obito-kun woke up.” Rin sounds apologetic. They’ve done the only right thing, Obito and her, but—still.</p><p>“Should’ve waited for Minato-sensei,” Kakashi says again. He lets Rin let him down on the floor, the stone wall supporting his back. He’s shivering, badly.</p><p>“You’re kidding, Bakashi, right?” And—Kami. Obito sounds so much like his adult self, lone and rugged and tired. He slides down the wall next to Kakashi. “Let’s just, uh, let’s have a breather for a moment here, yeah?”</p><p>No one, not even Naruto, could make them move at that moment.</p><p>Makes Kakashi wonder, though. Last time around, it was Rin who woke up on that slab, a tailed beast stirring inside her. The thing’s heavy in his stomach, sitting there like a mountain. Every moment of rest Kakashi gets, the thing sucks it all up. He can’t catch his breath.</p><p>That’s why, what feels like five minutes later but probably is closer to half an hour, when Rin’s on the edge of a breakdown, begging Kakashi and Obito to move, Kakashi’s still feeling like he’s just pushed past triple Chidori in a row.</p><p>The energy pills Rin makes him swallow don’t do anything—unless the sound of blood rushing in Kakashi’s ears is the pills’ fault.</p><p>Like a child, Kakashi’s crying for Minato-sensei on the inside. For him to come, snatch them up, make it all better. “We should really get sensei here… ‘m not feelin’ right.”</p><p>Both of his friends must already know that whatever the Iwa nin did to him, it wasn’t anything ordinary.</p><p>The mental turmoil Rin must’d gone through, last time around, to decide to kill herself.</p><p>The Iwa nin keep on their heels, not letting even a moment of reprieve for Kakashi to gather his senses. He hasn’t planned this through at all. They’ve passed the Fire border a long time ago, and the deeper they go, the older are the trees, the bigger the threat to the village.</p><p>How bad the Sanbi can be? Konoha’d survived the nine-tails attack, after all.</p><p>
  <em>The entirety of Uchiha plan wiped out, plus Minato and Kushina’s deaths, for starters.</em>
</p><p>“Okay—<em>okay</em>,” Kakashi says with what feels like the last of his breath. He slows down, catching both Rin and Obito by their vests to halt with him.</p><p>“What <em>is it?</em>” Obito sounds so damn annoyed, but he looks even worse—scared beyond belief. The Sharingan in his eyes swirl in a sporadic whirl, slowing down and speeding up without Obito’s conscious input. Kakashi misses the feeling of them—how that left eye drained his chakra, chipping away at his stamina at all times. The things he could <em>see</em> with it…</p><p>“This is how far we go,” he gasps, looking over his shoulder. Their pursuit is closing in—he can feel their signature. They don’t exactly try to hide the sound of them, carried by the wind.</p><p>Not to mention the stench of blood.</p><p>“What do you—“</p><p>“This is how far we go. Can’t lead them back home—“</p><p>“Of course we can!” Obito wails. “Why wouldn’t we—there’s more than enough shinobi back home to fight off these assholes! You just wait, c’mon, I can— I can carry you, I totally can—“ he’s readying to heave him up as if his limbs aren’t trembling with strain of his own weight.</p><p>Kakashi sighs. It’s more of a half-abandoned attempt to catch his bearings. “We can’t—<em>go to Konoha</em>—because when they kidnapped me, I think… I think they sealed a bijuu in me.” He grabs the hem of his shirt, holding it just over his stomach. A weight, heavy like a stone, sits inside. It’s nauseating—Kakashi can’t imagine how Naruto lived so long, not realizing something was dwelling in him.</p><p>Realization sparks in Rin’s eyes, and with that, suspicion. She stares ahead of herself, and at this moment Kakashi can swear on his life she’s trying to recall the events of a past long gone.</p><p>“What are you talking about?! That’s it, c’mon, get up—“ Obito turns around as if to haul Kakashi on his back.</p><p>Kakashi pushes him between the shoulders, making Obito yelp. “This isn’t the time—<em>Kami</em>, I’m stuck with a bunch of children again…”</p><p>Obito looks more than ready to argue against that with passion. An enemy kunai swishing right past his face is what stops him. He disappears in a warp of misplaced air, and the sounds of a fight resume.</p><p>“So, tell me,” Kakashi turns to Rin, grinning because he can’t help it, being the only one with a semblance of calm in him. Rin’s definitely more freaked out by his demeanor. “Minato-sensei’s kunai I threw—you definitely picked it, right?”</p><p>She quickly gets ahold of herself. “Right,” nodding, she picks it out of her pouch in a swift motion. “Once we started moving and he still wasn’t there. Don’t you think we should…”</p><p>Looking around, Kakashi can guess what she means well enough. They’re flanked on all sides, and Obito’s the only one doing any fighting. He’s throwing fireballs left and right, which is, yeah, with the Obito aim is the best way to burn through all his chakra by the end of the minute.</p><p>“I think we’re fine,” Kakashi replies, testing his own reserves.</p><p>After that not-too-pleasant accident with him almost blowing up his arm with Chidori, Kakashi has trained <em>a lot</em>. Not being able to properly use the only technique that’s full-heartedly his and not actually stolen—that hurt his ego more than anything. Kakashi sends a test-nibble of a lightning down to the tips of his fingers. His chakra doesn’t go <em>smoothly</em>—there’s so much of it that, at some points through the travel down his arm, it creates a jam of power that hurts enough on its own.</p><p><em>We’re not really fine</em>, he almost says but bites his tongue. Because Kakashi doesn’t need to use something that requires perfect chakra control—he can just blow up the place, seeing as the chakra overflowing his pathways is definitely not <em>his</em> and there’s more than enough of it to create a miniature bijuu ball.</p><p>There’s a high chance the three of them are gonna live through this, even.</p><p>Of course, they need to buy enough time until Minato-sensei arrives.</p><p>“You think you can throw that kunai again? If Minato went looking for you after I threw it,” he keeps talking, shorter on breath with every second. Taijutsu is out of the question completely. “I’m sure sensei’ll be glad if we give him a clue where to go to find us, again.”</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Kushina is the one who re-seals the Sanbi. Kakashi can’t remember much of it. He, of course, realizes it was the pain. Physical pain so strong he’s glad he can’t remember, not a single point in time.</p><p>Now, he can feel the beast in him lie dormant.</p><p>He only lets Kushina examine how well the seals are healing after she’d promised him both Rin and Obito made it out okay.</p><p>“Won’t help much when you’re sleeping, though,” Kushina says. “Mito-san has somehow sealed the Kyuubi inside me so it doesn’t really… seep in. This,” she pokes him right where the centre of his ribcage ends, where the seal stretched vertically still oozes lymph, “is the best I could do on the spot, since we were gettin’ killed and all.” Kushina’s beaming at him once she’s done explaining.</p><p>“You seem… really proud of your work.” She’s mad, of course, Kakashi has always known that—same way Naruto was mad, Gaara, all of them. It’s the bijuu, creatures old as time itself, that tick them off sooner or later. “I just hope I won’t explode or anything.”</p><p>That beaming smile slowly slips away. Kushina glances to the single door out of the windowless room Kakashi woke up in—almost like she’s stealing that glance, like someone might be watching.</p><p>“You know, you’re a jinchuuriki now. I can’t imagine… Other nations won’t be happy Konoha got itself another tailed one, you see?” She pokes him in the chest again, but this time—less playful, as she’s deep in thought. “Minato told me…”</p><p>She trails off.</p><p>“Oh. Minato told you… and the pause, Kushina-san. That can’t be good.” He can’t really help himself. Plus, being snarky elevates some of the pressure.</p><p>“No, no! Nothing like that! He just—well, you’re really strong and but— I can’t really <em>say it here</em>,” and she winks so awkwardly Kakashi can only assume she really doesn’t want to bring the topic up while they’re in the room. “I’ll see you soon! Minato and I’ll try to visit tomorrow, your father, too, until then… well, you must rest,” and her tone says she’s well-aware of his sleeping habits, Minato likely the culprit to blame, “and if you have any vivid dreams… You know?”</p><p>She leaves, the last and only allowed visitor for the day.</p><p>Kakashi is acutely aware that he’s not in a hospital. The room doesn’t look like anything to him. It’s not familiar, but the layout—well, it’s telling.</p><p>Makes sense they’d lock him up, in the middle of war and all that.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Think I’m crazy, sometimes,” he tells his dad over dinner.</p><p>Sakumo’s voice is calm, unlike the rest of him. “How so?”</p><p>“I think I…” <em>Traveled back in time.</em></p><p>
  <em>Know the future.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Know a single variant of the future that’d landed me here, and now I’m at a loss of what to do after changing the only timeline I knew.</em>
</p><p>“Not sure,” Kakashi opts, and the lie’s sharp in his chest.</p><p>His dreams are vivid—Kushina promised they would be. But she didn’t tell <em>why</em>, not until a week later when they finally released him from T&amp;I. He should’ve guessed that was the place, but—well.</p><p>Kakashi was too preoccupied with the dreams of drowning.</p><p>His dreams are all of the underwater now. Sometimes the water spans so far Kakashi can’t imagine it has an end, and sometimes it’s so full of life he’d never imagined existed. It took a few days for the Sanbi to calm down after being re-sealed—days Kakashi thankfully doesn’t remember.</p><p>Now, somehow content with its resting place, the bijuu is taking Kakashi for a ride every time Kakashi goes to sleep. He’s not sure how intentional that is, or if the images of the sea are dreams or memories. They feel real enough to be both, and every time Kakashi wakes, he has to force his lungs to <em>just inhale</em> as the air gets stuck in his mouth and nose, body sure it’s still under.</p><p>“Kushina-san said,” he says carefully, sliding an oily piece of steamed zucchini across his plate. “She said this could be the Sanbi’s influence.”</p><p>The world doesn’t feel real. It never was, of course, to Kakashi; his world ended where Sakura and Naruto and Sasuke stayed. And now, more than ever, he can’t help but think of that like a fever dream. The thought of that world being Kakashi’s reality is so dreadful, he can only function now by putting it away as far as it’ll go.</p><p>Having a bijuu that was sealed half-assedly at first, then resealed in a way that still allows a ‘<em>steady connection</em>’, doesn’t help.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Do you have dreams like that? Of—the forest, or, whatever that fox likes?” he asks one day, morbid curiosity taking the better of him. Kushina has already explained how she left a bigger window for the Sanbi and Kakashi to <em>see</em> each other through; Kakashi’s poor stamina and the Three-Tails apparently calm nature being the sole reason for Kushina to not chain up the beast inside for good.</p><p>“Not really,” she says, no moment to consider her memories at all. Kushina knew he’d ask those questions. “Yours and mine seals are very different—<em>Kurama</em> and I aren’t much of friends, and he’s got quite a violent temper,” she chuckles. “<em>Isobu</em>, though—well, I figured he won’t try and take you over!”</p><p>Kakashi’s pretty sure, basing his theory on a half-forgotten psychology training they underwent in ANBU, that what follows those words is a severe anxiety attack on his part.</p><p>He starts off <em>yelling at Kushina-san</em>, and then <em>a feeling</em> overlaps whatever anger he had just a moment before. It’s not until Kushina repeats for what must be a tenth time that she’s <em>confident the seal won’t allow any ill-doing from the bijuu’s part</em> that he talks himself into things not being that fucking bad.</p><p>“This is my seal, after all, dattebane!” she says, ruffling Kakashi’s hair. “And none other than <em>Namikaze Minato</em> overlooked the sealing, so you can be damn sure it’s the best you could get.”</p><p>“Why did you lie to Hokage, then?”</p><p>They’re sitting in the sunlight that washes the abandoned training ground near the Forest of Death. There’s the ANBU guard, of course, not aimed at Kushina as she’s trusted well enough, but at Kakashi. He isn’t sure if they expect him to go rogue or for the seal to break, but they’re still around, and still easily fooled by a small field of chakra disrupting the waves of sound, making their voices unintelligible.</p><p>The ANBU must know they’re talking about something, just—not what the issue is, exactly.</p><p>“While I was at T&amp;I, you lied to them. You didn’t tell them what you did.”</p><p>“I never lied to them, silly!”</p><p>“So you explained, in detail, how the seal’s purposefully weakened? Or did Hokage-sama—“</p><p>“Let’s just say, the people who had any business knowing, know fuuinjutsu well enough to figure for themselves.”</p><p>She winks again, and the only reason Kakashi doesn’t roll his eyes is because he’s lived almost twenty years with the gesture meaning very little to the outside with most of his face covered. He should pick up the habit again, though—he used to be quite an eye-roller as a kid, last time around.</p><p>“Then I guess, me being a time-bomb isn’t much of a concern.”</p><p>“Exactly, dattebane!” she picks his grim argument and cheers it up with her unbridled enthusiasm, which, sadly, doesn’t last Kakashi an hour after they part ways.</p><p>Kakashi’s still benched. The only training he’s allowed is with her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. bloodletter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>it's either no update in two months or two updates in two days, huh</p><p>please leave a word if you enjoyed!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Uh-oh.”</p><p>Kakashi’s badly-aimed bijuu ball starts a chain reaction through the traps circling the outer border of the village. They’re on the training grounds outside Konoha’s territory, but apparently not far enough to not stumble upon a line of traps that doesn’t take kindly to being charged with a tightly-swirling ball of lightning. The thing felt tremendously wrong in Kakashi’s palm.</p><p>He had to maintain a singularity using the bijuu ball to keep Raiton from expanding into <em>Raikiri</em>. After all, Kakashi didn’t want to reinvent <em>Chidori</em>. He wanted something he could still use, now with the added chakra reserves from the bijuu, to stir up some action; and so comes another ungodly cross of Rasengan with lightning properties.</p><p>Kushina spins on her heels like a whirligig, looking around with an expression of utter astonishment. At first Kakashi thinks it’s the explosion; she’s expecting the chain reaction to spread behind them, then.</p><p>But then he feels, but not too long before he sees them; what looks like a <em>platoon</em> of ANBU ops and a few jounin, popping all around them from shadows or puffs of smoke.</p><p>“Uh-oh,” he says again in the wake of the destruction. “Some business…”</p><p>It’s not long before Minato joins them. Kakashi doesn’t stick around to explain things. Quite the opposite, actually—Minato nods at the two ANBU guards who escort Kakashi back into the village. They try to drag him by his shoulders, at first, which is <em>nuh-huh</em>, Kakashi isn’t about to be manhandled by a bunch of stuck-up ops he was in charge of, last time around.</p><p>“Can walk just fine,” he grumbles instead, and the words come out so <em>grumpy</em> and <em>bratty</em> he swears from talking for the rest of the trip back into the T&amp;I room.</p><p>No one tortures or interrogates him, of course. They simply dump him there and close the door behind them, leaving Kakashi to sulk in solitude.</p><p>It doesn’t take long for him to start buzzing with anxiety, though. If he’s somehow landed Kushina-san or Minato-sensei in trouble…</p><p>Kakashi doesn’t want to <em>think</em> about it, which he can manage just fine—it’s the buzzing nerves under his skin and inside his skull that he can’t deal with. Feels like hours before the door opens again, and through it comes Sakumo.</p><p>Kakashi flies into his hands, not a pang of self-consciousness crossing his mind. <em>Kami</em>, he doesn’t really know if he’s screwed up or not, but seeing his father—seeing Sakumo alive and well and maybe thinking of a scolding, but never doing it (he’s never told Kakashi a single harsh word)—it pushes Kakashi over that threshold.</p><p>He sobs into the stiff, worn vest. It feels like a fine sandpaper on his bare face, but that’s the pain so easy to ignore and so simple to latch on, Kakashi does just that. The focus on one thing, and Sakumo’s hand in his hair, and he’s back to himself again in seconds.</p><p>They step apart, and one look at Sakumo’s face almost sends him over again. Guilt washes through like a storm wave. He sways, but stays on his feet. “Is it that bad?”</p><p>“Of course not,” Sakumo promises. They sit on the bed—more like a medical cot, but Kakashi’s really too used to that sort of thing to think much of it.</p><p>This moment reminds him of the conversation they’ve had, when Pain’d killed him.</p><p>Kakashi still hasn’t decided what that was. Most days, he’d just think with reminiscence of that moment, but at the worst times the looming suspicion would come out. A suspicion that that was nothing but a feverish dream of a dying brain, trying to live out a full life before its untimely end.</p><p>He thinks he’s in a dream sometimes, too, the moment between life and death by Kaguya’s hand stretching out into him going back to save his friends.</p><p>But if this is Kakashi dreaming out the saving of his friends, why does he end up suffering as much as in real life?</p><p>Is this his brain’s making, too?</p><p>“Will Kushina-san get in trouble on my account?” he asks, because no matter his suspicion of this not being the living world, he’s still trapped in it.</p><p>“She won’t—you didn’t do anything wrong, really.”</p><p>They did leave the village, but were still within the Hidden territory. Not to mention, some of the guards were on them from the moment Kakashi and Kushina left their respective homes.</p><p>“I did send a chain reaction of explosions all around the village barrier…”</p><p>“Ah, well—I’m forgetting you weren’t around when Kushina was a baby,” Sakumo smiles with just his eyes, and Kakashi’s split between realization that <em>Sakumo keeps forgetting a life his son isn’t a part of</em> and that <em>my father still thinks I’m a baby</em>. “There was quite a number of explosions and accidents going around.” Which sounds fairly familiar, if isn't for the same culprit.</p><p>“Still getting locked up.”</p><p>Sakumo’s hand comes atop his head so unexpectedly, Kakashi almost jumps.</p><p>“Not for long,” Sakumo tells him and retreats, wary of his reactions.</p><p>“Guess I should be lucky I’m not being interrogated…”</p><p>“You don’t believe those rumors about the ANBU, do you?”</p><p>“Of course not, tou-san.”<em>I’ve lived them.</em></p><hr/><p> </p><p>Kakashi meets the council a few days after the incident. It’s like he didn’t matter much until now.</p><p>Is he doing everything right?</p><p>He’s asking himself this question constantly. Now, after meeting the old guard, it strikes him that<em> he’s never really thought of them until this moment</em>. Not of Hiruzen’s death to Orochimaru, and definitely not of how the sight of Danzo is enough to justify murder and treason.</p><p>Once Kakashi’s allowed back into his home at the Hatake Compound, not even his father’s insistence helps him keep himself together.</p><p>There’s little to no indication of Zetsu influencing the shinobi history. And the longer Kakashi looks into it, the bigger the pit in his stomach.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Sakumo, Minato, Kushina, Rin, and Obito survive the war.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Despite being one of the two village’s proudest possessions, Kakashi isn’t kept in a literal cage.</p><p>It’s still a cage, yes, but not a literal one.</p><p>And so, months after acquiring a roommate in his body and enduring Kushina’s training—and, Kami, he used to think Minato and himself were bad—Kakashi is let out for a walk, sometimes, on a very short leash.</p><p>Times like today.</p><p>Currently he’s sitting on a thick tree branch, a jounin in nothing but status, kicking his feet and waiting for the rest of the team to finish their lunch break. He himself has inhaled a bunch of ration bars Rin has perfected, just for her team.</p><p>A bunch of this team is dead on arrival, in his eyes. Kakashi hasn’t seen them in decades. One—soon to be named Tiger—was going to be on Kakashi’s ANBU team, if Kakashi let things slide a second time around. After surviving ANBU long enough for his captain to get out, Tiger was going to join ROOT.</p><p>Kakashi isn’t sure what happens to him after. He is likely dead in Kakashi’s original timeline, and by looking at the man now, his red hair and olive skin and eyes filled with cold, stale anger, it’s too easy to imagine the death of him to mean the death of Kakashi’s failures.</p><p>He shakes the morbid thought out of his head, and proceeds to study the rest of the team.</p><p>There’re a few others from ANBU, too. Quite a joke lady Irony is playing on Kakashi, sending him on a border patrol and sweeping with them.</p><p>Once they’re done and back on the road, Kakashi’s keeping an eye out for possible disturbances the rest of the team isn’t aware enough to notice.</p><p>There isn’t much.</p><p>Not until they reach the northern border with deep, dark woods, sprawling across Kakashi’s head not unlike the giant seaweed in the tailed beast’s dreams. He feels underwater, somehow, running along the sea floor. In the trance-like state a grey shadow dashing at the edge of his visions is nothing, not until Kakashi’s mind catches up to his body as he’s on the forest floor and halting, heels deep in the mixture of old pine needles and sand and dirt, jumping after it.</p><p>This is truly more of a test mission for him than an actual patrol; that is evident because his team is yelling after him instead of getting their guard up. He makes a sign for <em>danger</em> and continues right to the border line.</p><p>The border isn’t easy to tell, but soon-to-be-Tiger knows better than Kakashi, because he all but grabs his wrist to stop him.</p><p>Kakashi jumps away. Not far enough to seem like a renegade, but enough to get the point across—he doesn’t want anyone touching him.</p><p>“This is as far as we go,” Tiger tells him, and Kakashi has to keep the rising rage in him down. The phantom memories of being in charge of the team, always, are enough for the Sanbi’s chakra to start seeping to the outside.</p><p>“I saw something.”</p><p>Tiger looks around in mocking seriousness, exchanges glances with the rest of the team, “Well, there’s nothing here now, is there, Silver Pup?”</p><p>Right.</p><p>There is that other thing.</p><p>With his father surviving past the end of the war, present as a peace guard during the signing of the treaty, and apparently not abolishing the <em>shame</em> by killing himself, Kakashi has even more hate thrown at him. Seeing as many of the younger shinobi are survivors who lost their dear ones—</p><p>That isn’t any of Kakashi’s or Sakumo’s fault, but still, he has to deal with that the same way he has to deal with being a jinchuuriki of a stolen bijuu. Most of Konoha’s nin aren’t irked at the <em>theft</em> part of the solution, rather than the fallout which made the already crumbled post-war peace even more fragile.</p><p>Getting a hold on himself, Kakashi agrees. “I guess there isn’t.”</p><p>But the location where he saw the grey shadow is ingrained in his mind as good as if he were to save it with his Sharingan.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Hokage-sama,” he bows again, once his remaining team dissipates from the office.</p><p>“Kakashi, please,” Minato rubs his face, smiling tiredly as he wipes dust off a stack of papers on his desk. The gesture does nothing but create more dust balls. “Drop that, for the love of… everything…”</p><p>He’s very glad to have the most reasonable man he knows back in the seat, and that’s why, “All shinobi are the subjects of their lords. You’re my Hokage, Hokage-sa—“</p><p>“If you finish that sentence, I’ll ask Kushina to force you to learn the Adamantine Sealing Chains, and I won't care how only the Uzumaki clan can perfect the technique.”</p><p>Micro-annoying Minato-sensei can be the peak of his whole week sometimes. Despite that, Kakashi drops it easy enough. Sensei doesn’t seem incredibly tired—he never really does—but today Kakashi feels like staying off his pseudo-bad side. He isn’t really sure Minato has a true bad side for the people close to him. Unlike Kushina, because:</p><p>“Threaten me all you want, but after she realized I inherited tou-san’s White Light chakra, she’s been dead-set on transforming the jutsu to create the sealing chains from that.” He shudders at the memory, because after hours of planning and brain-storming and outlining seals came two full day they didn’t leave the field. Kakashi had literally slept five hours after passing out from exhaustion, and when he woke up, Kushina-san was so high on inspiration that had suddenly struck her, calling it a day was out of the question. “It’s a… work in progress, sensei.”</p><p>Minato throws his hands up. “Did you need my help, Kakashi?”</p><p>“I… I actually wanted to ask you a favor, sensei.” In his mind, a forest underwater tunnel spans from here all the way to the spot where he saw the dark shadow.</p><p>Listening to his request doesn’t add any color to Minato’s fair face. He rubs his eye and reaches out to the papers again, catching himself only halfway. “The council won’t be happy with that.”</p><p>“Are they ever, really?”</p><p>They stare each other in the eye, and after a good moment of Kakashi’s heart pounding in his chest, Minato nods. “Alright, then. Once Obito’s back from his assignment, you, Rin, and him can go investigate. But it’s only if,” he swallows, looking between Kakashi and the papers, “it’s only if you’re sure it’s nothing serious. I can’t see how it doesn’t require any more men if you’re so adamant on investigating.”</p><p>“I know, Minato-sensei,” Kakashi keeps his cool despite the screaming on the inside, but just as he’s about to explain his reasoning, or the lack of it, Minato lets the issue go.</p><p>“You now I trust you. Report to me once you’re back. Meanwhile—“</p><p>Kakashi’s mind goes a mile a minute. “Please don’t tell me you’re gonna yell at that team for missing a hunch.” He doesn’t want anyone in trouble on his account, whether they deserve it or not, because keeping the lowest profile possible is essential for not aggravating more people towards the two-men clan.</p><p>“—Well I’m not <em>yelling</em> at anyone.” Minato appears hurt at the suggestion, but it’s clear he’s only pretending.</p><p>“It’s not that you’re<em> literally yelling at someone</em>, it’s that one look from you is enough to make someone run for their life—or, you know, regret all their life decisions, that applies too…”</p><p>“Oh, Kakashi, I wish everyone had your level of sensitivity. Now c’mon, can’t you see, I have work to do.” Minato nods at the papers pointedly.</p><p>“It’s just a bunch of papers, sensei.”</p><p>“Do you see that it’s quite a heavy bunch?”</p><p>Kakashi shrugs. “I can do them for you.”</p><p>Minato opens his mouth to refuse and then freezes for a moment, the fastest man alive looking like he’s been caught on film, before his face lightens up. He reaches the stack of paper and moves it across the desk, creating a miniature dust storm. “...Here you go, Kashi-kun.”</p><p>Kakashi takes a seat next to Minato. Sensei vanishes with a whizz, and just as Kakashi's about to puff at the idea that Hokage left his post for today, he reappears with another, fatter stack of documents, setting that one in front of himself.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s not until three days later that Obito returns, but once he’s back, they’re ready to set off the next morning. Kakashi’s feeling nauseous, which for once has nothing to do with the Sanbi. If his gut feeling’s correct, Zetsu’s hiding spot—or current sweeping area—is where he saw the grey shadow, which explains its origin in the worst way possible. Kakashi badly wants to prove himself wrong, to say that the feeling of that shadow wasn’t unfamiliar; that it was a fleeing buck, or a big cat admitting there is no prey among a bunch of cold, swift humans stinking of old blood, and leaving with haste.</p><p>But until he’s back there, until Team Seven has cleared the area of anything suspicious, he can’t let that feeling go.</p><p>Having Obito with him seems like the worst idea possible, and Kakashi keeps him no farther than an arm’s length away at all times during their travel.</p><p>They never find Zetsu, but Kakashi stumbles upon something else that can explain the dashing shadow.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Thing is, Kakashi’s still summonless.</p><p>The morning of his day off, he’s sitting cross-legged in the shy morning sun looking out of the clearing clouds, and watches his father train the ninken.</p><p>Pakkun is among them. He’s grown up since the last time Kakashi saw him, the time the pug played the role of a babysitter. The dog’s looking more confident and comfortable in his leader role in stead of Aoi, Sakumo’s trusted companion with onyx-black shining fur, the look of a meanest guard dog and the heart of gold. She’d died long before the war. Sakumo never got to assigning another leader to his pack.</p><p>Kakashi’s heart aches at the idea that his father never had the chance to heal enough from that to choose another second-in-command to the ninken. Now, watching Pakkun take the role in this timeline, under father’s guidance, even if it’s just a small home exercise—Kakashi’s heart fills with something else. It’s almost like nostalgia, painfully bittersweet.</p><p>He nods off, watching father and the ninken train, chin perched on his palm. It takes awhile for him to hear his father calling his name.</p><p>It’s almost impossible to keep his eyes open, not with the sleepiness and the bright now sun forcing his eyelids together. He squints at the blur that’s tall and silver enough among the sea of green to be his father, and hums in acknowledgment.</p><p>“Are you asleep?” Sakumo asks again, putting hands on his hips. “In the sun? Who are you and what have you done to my son?”</p><p>“Tou-san,” Kakashi blinks. “You don’t know the half of it.”</p><p>Not taken aback at the bland response, because Sakumo wouldn’t be Sakumo if he weren’t used to his only son’s occasional dramatics, he squats down to Kakashi’s level. “So, as I was asking.”<br/><br/>“I… did not hear what you said, tou-san.” Kakashi yawns, moderately but with passion. “I was asleep.”</p><p>“With each passing day you remind me of your mother more and more.”</p><p>The words are a surprise to the both of them. Kakashi wills everything in him not to react, or to not react negatively—he lets his eyes widen, because kid Kakashi or an adult traveling back in time, hearing Sakumo talk of his wife is <em>huge</em>, especially on a sunny day like this.</p><p>More to that, Sakumo doesn’t seem upset at his mention. His face is a mix of emotions, including surprise, content, and after a few seconds—easy determination as he accept the memory of his wife and continues on with the day. “What I <em>was saying</em>,” he repeats, combing a hand through his own hair, “is that it’s about time you sign a contract of your own.”</p><p>Kakashi’d never worried or even thought about summons, because he’d inherited his father’s—but not this time. Not since he and Rin and Obito went to investigate the mystery shadow, which turned out to not be Zetsu <em>at all.</em></p><p>The warm memories must appear on his face, because Sakumo rocks back on his heels and a confused smile appears on his face. “So, you got a contract.”</p><p>“I… might have.”</p><p>“<em>You didn’t tell me!</em>”</p><p>Kakashi’s mischievous joy seems to have spread to Sakumo and go back in a circle of ‘dumb happy’, because they’re smiling like a couple of idiots, and Kakashi’s sheepishly reaching to his back where the scroll’s sealed in a temporary mark on his skin. He brings a thumb to his uncovered mouth just as the scroll appears in a cloud of smoke, and once his bitten finger touches the center of it, the air fills with the joyful energy of a third soul—</p><p>The soul being,</p><p>“<em>A wolf</em>.”</p><p>“Not just <em>a wolf</em>, tou-san!” Kakashi jumps in defence of the awkward, disproportionate form of blindingly white fur that rolls in the grass and in Kakashi’s lap and between Sakumo’s knees with a happy whine, making all of the ninken’s ears stand at attention. “It’s an… uh… Well, it is a wolf, but it’s pretty special.” Kakashi has to admit his defeat; he can’t explain the exact nature of his contract species without going into detail about the fruits of the investigation that landed Team Seven, and Kakashi in particular, in trouble with Minato and the council, <em>and</em> landed Minato in trouble with the council and Kushina—the latter being the undefeated champion of bad luck. Today is simply not the day for such stories.</p><p>“Got a name for it?”</p><p>“I’m still thinking.” Kakashi lets his fingers run through the fur that seems to go on and on, thick and long and making the cub appear at least twice bigger than he actually is. “Those wolves, though… Quite a handful to get along with, I must admit.”</p><p>“Is that so?”</p><p>“<em>Yeah</em>,” he bites a laugh. “I swear, the, the <em>boss wolf</em> was going to kill me just for noticing she’s got a shadow. But, I got this little one out of it,” he turns to the little one, who is nibbling at Kakashi’s thumb with serene abandon.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>He dreams of an endless void filled with water, fish bigger than the moon floating over his head.</p><p>The Sanbi’s nowhere in sight, but, looking past the surface of the water Kakashi treads on, he can just barely make out the silver chains of his own, shaped and addled by the Uzumaki chakra into somewhat resembling the Adamantine Sealing Chains.</p><p>In the back of Kakashi’s mind is the memory of Kushina telling him that unlike the Kyuubi, the Sanbi isn’t chained up in its seal; Kakashi can’t fathom the concept, and the glint of his own white chakra in the water is only confusing him more.</p><p>Once he’s noticed it, however, he can’t shake the feeling of something watching him from under the surface.</p><p>For the first time in weeks, he doesn’t wake up feeling like he’s drowning. Instead, he’s so sleep lagged he <em>can’t stand up at all</em>. He faintly remembers his dad rushing into his room when he crashes on the floor, and then he’s in the void again, standing on water that’s watching his every breath.</p><hr/><p> </p><p><strong>I remember the girl</strong>, the Sanbi tells him.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Kakashi wakes up in a hospital ward, the shinobi wing empty for once.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Do you ever talk to the bijuu?” he asks Kushina.</p><p>“Not really. Not unless I’m using his chakra, I guess. Then he gets all pissed about it…”</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Kakashi’s allowed back in the field, most of his duties consisting of relief efforts and debris cleanup.</p><p>He’s one of the few jounin not out out on reconnaissance missions, and Rin and Obito join him quite soon.</p><p>That on itself is such a novelty Kakashi can’t find it in him to mind being benched, for the first time in over a year. Rin and Obito, both right by his side, chatting and bickering.</p><p>“Guess they didn’t send you in vanguard while I was out of commission, huh?” he smiles at them with genuine happiness, but of course Obito picks up at the smallest nab.</p><p>“W-well, still better than kicking dust around in the training fields!”</p><p>“Ah, I kicked quite a lot of that, that’s true.”</p><p>He falls into the banter easily. It helps take away some of the turmoil from seeing Rin, because every time she’s in his line of vision, Kakashi feels his bijuu’s words in his skull. <strong><em>I remember the girl.</em></strong></p><p>The Sanbi never responded to him, so Kakashi still has no explanation. The issue grows bad enough he can barely stop himself from shoving his hitae-ate over half of his face like he used to do—keeping Rin on his left like that, at least he won’t be constantly reminded of the Sanbi's words and just what exactly they imply.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>“A being of chakra… Borne of it… They don’t ever really die.” Kakashi mutters what he knows for the hundredth time.</p><p>He's playing catch with the wall while a white-furred cub sits on the couch with him. He’s forgone his on-guard attitude, choosing to laze around in the safety of a familiar place.</p><p>Confident that whatever his newest cub hears and makes of his words, he won’t have anyone but Kakashi himself to go gossip with, obligated by the contract, Kakashi lets himself go full-on conspiracy mode, right inside the Namikaze’s kitchen.</p><p>The small chalkboard Kushina and Minato used to write down notes and recipes and reminders and stuff’s now Kakashi’s domain, along with the rest of the wall.</p><p>“‘Kashi-kun, Minato and your father and I are <em>really worried</em>.” Kushina’s made him some awesome jasmine and mint tea, which Kakashi’s enjoying to the fullest—by not gulping it down in one go and actually letting his mask down for once, content inside his sensei’s apartment.</p><p>Pacing the kitchen with the hot cup in hand, another holding a scroll he’s not so sneakily pulled from the restricted library section with Minato’s ID card, using the fact that Minato’s now Hokage and his poor jinchuuriki student is admitted to running wild as long as he’s not hurting anybody, himself included, Kakashi can’t really see the reason for worry. “I don’t see how’s that connected to the bijuu.”</p><p>“Well,” Kushina places her own cup down with a noticeable glass-on-wood <em>clink</em>. “Let’s pretend you didn’t just try to make a fool of me by implying that your level of obsession with the tailed beasts isn’t worthy of our concern,” she says in the sweetest voice. There’s a storm coming once she finishes that sentence without raising her tone, which is the sole reason Kakashi doesn’t go back into his brainstorming mode.</p><p>Instead, Kakashi attempts at some damage control. Something that won’t mention the possibility of Kakashi being in the process of losing it. Which is: blinking at Kushina in silence, at a loss of what <em>else</em> he can possibly say without mentioning the time-travel stuff.</p><p>This all could have been avoided if she’d just sealed the Sanbi with some proper chains, eradicating any chance of accidental communication until Kakashi was in the training for it. That on itself, of course, would create a plethora of other problems—but at least Kakashi wound’t be here, with all of Kushina’s worried attention right on him.</p><p>“It’s good the Sanbi and you’re talking like that,” she says. Kushina’s so calm it’s unnerving. “He’s not trying to take you over, or…”</p><p>She trails off, staring out the window.</p><p>It’s a sunny day outside; too hot for Kakashi’s liking, as the thin membrane textile isn’t invented until he’s around eighteen, and he’s sweating under the cloth mask he’s got now.</p><p>“On the matter of me not being myself,” he tells her once he's finished his tea and she's still spaced out. “You seem awfully off, Kushina-san…”</p><p>She turns to him, sharp but still calm. “You think the bijuu can see through time?” Her hand is on her stomach, which is—right about time, even if Minato hasn’t broken the news yet.</p><p>Kakashi can’t describe what he feels at the news. It’s like his heart drops into his stomach, lifting the heavy weight constricting his chest—<em>dread</em> and <em>relief</em> mix together, and in the end he’s left with a feeling too unsettling to be in any way hopeful.</p><p>Sure. There’s hope the Kyuubi inside of Kushina has the very same memories it’s not supposed to have. It's possible it <em>remembers the kid.</em> <em>Shit</em>, if that’s the case--</p><p>“What did it tell you?” he asks, a void filling his chest.</p>
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